Turf Bustin’

On a balmy Sunday in late October I set about eliminating my front
lawn. I come from England’s green and pleasant land and having
suffered four summers with southern Ontario's brown and scratchy scrub,
I'd had enough.

Our house is newly built and I'm simply not into zealous summer watering
the way some of the neighbours with their mini jewelled-patches are.
I’d come to the conclusion that I could create a much more attractive
vista by planting drought tolerant ornamental grasses, shrubs and plants
in a variety of soft, complementary colours than I ever could by persisting
with the poor excuse of a lawn the builder had laid.

I decided to try an organic technique I’d recently read about
in Canadian Gardening known as “sheet mulching” (October/November
2005), which would render the area available for planting after about
6 weeks. This was in preference to the back-breaking, labour intensive,
more expensive alternative of digging up the turf and replacing it all
with top soil. My lawn (approx 17x25 feet) did not look like it was
going to cause too many problems and I was confident that the task could
be completed in a day.

I'd been saving newspapers for weeks, enlisting supplies from neighbours,
and had accumulated a pile of newsprint about 3 feet high. I'd also
collected sacks and sacks of leaves from friends and relatives, and
bought bags of cedar mulch from the garden centre at end of season sale
prices. I'd cut the grass a couple of days earlier on my reel mower's
lowest setting and was finally ready to bury the turf.

Sunday was calm (or so we thought). I started by spreading a layer
of compost across the whole garden to stimulate worm activity and watered
it thoroughly. Then the fun really started. I marched out of the house
with arms full of newspaper and started carefully laying them across
the grass about 6 sheets deep in blocks of about 6-8 feet square. The
newspaper will smother grass and weeds, but must be overlapped so there
are no gaps. We had a problem - the newspaper had a tendency to lift
up in the slightest breeze and I ended up laying strategically placed
garden spades across the edges. My husband assisted by damping each
section as we went along, which also helped to prevent last week's news
blustering down the street. Alternatives to the newspaper could be cardboard,
burlap bags or other organics that will break down - not plastic (apparently
worms love newspaper too).

The weed-free compost layer came next and my research had suggested
a variety of materials. I didn't have enough compost for a thick layer,
but did spread another thin layer, soaking each section of layered newspaper
with cans of water from the rain barrel. More fun - it was time to spread
the leaves. We hit another hitch - the sacks I'd accumulated only covered
about half the lawn. We don't have mature trees in our immediate neighbourhood
so I took a quick drive and relieved some of the diligent folks a few
streets over who'd kindly loaded their sidewalks with piles and piles
of leaves - just ready for me to scoop up! Two sneaky trips and a few
odd glances later, I had enough to cover the newspaper layer. I finished
it off with another good soak.

Oct '05 - the former
lawn is ready for planting in the spring

I finally covered these layers with attractive cedar mulch and watered
everything again. In all we used about 14 sacks of leaves and 18 bags
of mulch. The total thickness was about 4 inches.

The process seemed easy from the magazine description, but it was
actually quite time consuming and the newspaper layer was hard work
on the legs and back (and I’m still under 40!). In total it took
close to 7 hours to do the whole job, including the extra trips and
of course, lunch. However, I am sure that this process was much less
stress and hassle than digging up all that turf, and I must admit, I
kind of enjoyed causing consternation among our neighbours!

And now, I can rest safe in the knowledge that throughout winter, our
efforts are producing a healthy swath of nutrient-rich, organic material
in which to plant my imaginative scheme of ornamental grasses, shrubs,
perennials, bulbs and alpines when the warm weather arrives –
goodbye nasty, half dead scrub.